It is that this point that the average Westerner or British’er should try to forget everything that they have ever been taught in school regarding Hinduism.

When I was at school, Hinduism was brought up in Religious Education classes. Unfortunately, these classes forced all religions into the structure of Christianity in order to compare them. So, where in Christianity you have God, you had Shiva and under that you had, in place of Jesus, Krishna, and so on and so forth through the angels (the Deva), the priests (the Brahmans), the Bible (the Vedas) and the Kingdom of Heaven (Rebirth). The one thing is that it is clear from such a muddle is that the people who wrote the RE syllabus had little-to-no idea of Hinduism either. Placed into this twisted context it all looks a little crazy and no wonder as the Hindu faith isn’t like Christianity in almost every way possible. It is a totally different beast. In the first instance it is vital to realise that “Hinduism” is an umbrella term for a whole host of beliefs all interlocked only by their founding geography – that is they all come from India. Then you must realise that when we discuss the Hindu Cosmology we are not talking about a Celestial Hierarchy in the same way that we do in Christianity at all. I.E. with God at the top and you near the bottom just above the animals.

No, in Hinduism you are God.

For the Christians reality is like clay. There is a very clear analogy of God being like a potter at his wheel, or perhaps a watchmaker at his table and we are his creation. In Hinduism the analogy that fits is that of a play, a performance, which you are a part of. You leave and re-join the stage, you may exchange masks or play many parts, but this reality is all “in character”. There is another “self”, a spiritual self, under all this baggage of flesh and bones that is the mask we all wear. This is the spark of the divine, which is exempt from the black and white duality of reality. What we call “reality” is only an illusion because in the true reality you are God – but you have forgotten that you are God. That divine spark is a part of God, part of Brahman.

A meditating man seated towards the morning sun.

But what of Shiva et all?  This is where it gets complex. Essentially, he is an aspect of the Godhead just like everyone else; just with a cosmic job to do. If you were to ask Lord Shiva, “How do you do all this creation and destruction?” he  would answer “I just do. How do you breath in and out?” These “Gods” are not like God in Christianity or Allah to the Muslims, they are like forms of a greater nature a connection with which we have lost.

Keep this in mind when you read about the Hindu’s. It explains another massive difference; the belief in self-improvement. The Hindu’s believe that you can improve your self, your awareness of the self – that is of reality – through training. Religious training that takes many forms. For some it is through Vedic ritual; passed down over countless generations; for others it is by denying the body; the mortification of the flesh; but in all cases it is about release. The release from the chains of your mind. This spirit pervades almost all of Indian inventions. Take their food, Thali, which is devised from the scriptures of Ayurvedic medicine and is all about maintaining the right balance in the body to promote mental clarity (which it sure does, I miss it every time I think of it). This release, this blowing out, is what the Buddhists call Nirvana and is to escape the cycle of birth and death to which we are all (apart from the Buddhas) trapped in. The escape of the self is the waking up and remembering who you really are and the enlightenment of the true self. This is why Buddhists and Hindu’s put their hands together and bow to each other and why their rituals are full of bowing, because they are bowing to the self in each other that is part of the divine.

A man prays  in the Ganges

This is the reason that Varanasi, the center of the Hindu universe, is so important. Because Lord Shiva said that anyone who bathed in the holy river Ganges that flows through the city and burned in its pyres would achieve the Moksha (the blowing out and escape) that all Hindus aspire to. Being there on that river is a very special honour not to be forgotten and something to be cherished.

I tried really hard to keep all this in mind as I regarded the Aghori seated on the steps with his human skull bowl. The Aghori are worshipers of Shiva and totally devoted to their ascetic doctrines. They maintain that all opposites are in fact an illusion and make it their business to – at all times – liberate themselves through the un-acceptance of the duality of life. What this means in real terms is that the Aghori cover themselves with cremation ash and perform the taboo breaking rituals of eating meat, residing in cremation grounds, enjoying tantric sex with menopausal women, sleeping on corpses and even eating the dead found floating in the river or not burned up in the Ghat pyres (which I am coming to).

I must admit that I found it a struggle to maintain the perspective needed to achieve this. It was, if you will forgive the pun, hard to digest.

The previous night, before tucking into bed, I had wandered down to the river. The old part of Varanasi is all based around the Ghats. These are the steps that lead down to the waters. Many are unique or special to just some groups. Some have washers cleaning clothes, others have cremation death ceremonies being performed, all revolve around the water.

Ours was full of boats, so I booked an exceedingly early boat ride from an excitable boatman and turned in.

Old parts of Varanasi contrasts marvellously with the new. New Varanasi has some of the best universities in the world, some of the most modern hospital facilities and lots of money to run it all. The old Varanasi on the other hand is for pilgrims and tourists and had a vibe almost beyond belief.

In the morning, far too early in the morning, we got up and made our way to the boat. The guide/boatman was waiting and we hopped in.

Our Boatman rows us out at the beginning of our day

I am seriously not a morning person, but even I soon was amazed by the view of the city from the water as the sun rose. The city wakes up slowly and as the sun rises and starts to illuminate the buildings, turning them into a golden glowing red and orange colour, the pilgrims and Ghat’folk come down to the river to wash and meditate.

We went passed people slamming washing on rocks, priests performing the morning prayers to the sun (the same priests that would feature in the evening ceremony described below), monkeys climbing the buildings and seated brightly coloured Hindus enjoying the morning sun.

The stunning Varanasi Ghats

It was quite magical and a vital ingredient in enjoying your visit here. Then we passed the “burning” Ghats and the cameras went away. The funeral pyres were already in progress. The bodies, lightly wrapped in muslin, had been laid on a precisely calculated amount of firewood and then set alight. Even though the practice of wives throwing themselves onto the pyre is now banned, I can understand that the fundamentalist Hindus (that “f” word being the key to almost all the world ills) still want their women to go through with it. The prospect looked horrifying to me. As we passed along further I saw people swimming in the river and drinking the water, which is surely an extremely bad idea as the Ganges is polluted almost beyond belief. Perhaps they are adjusted to it, I thought. I was careful not to get any in my mouth anyway. The entire experience was very peaceful and broken only by the ubiquitous Indian music coming from behind the shoreline.

I filmed everything I could and at the end of this post there is special edition of the film I made of the footage.

After about 3 hours we arrived back at the hotel’s Ghat and retired to a very good travellers shop/cafe/hostel to take it all in. We had lots of planning to do because we were arranging a Tiger Safari on our next stop. I sipped a coffee and Cesca and I slaved over our computers arranging everything. It was there that we learned that there had been a murder discovered along the Ghats that morning. A quick look through the camera footage and we realised that Cesca, quite by accident, had recorded the crime scene.  We look at each other and silently determined to remain cautious about Varanasi.

The poor dead man.  |  Feral dogs roam everywhere.

As night fell, we got back in the boat and were rowed towards the real show.

“Dashashwamedh Ghat is located close to “Vishwanath Temple”, and is
probably the most spectacular ghat. Two Hindu mythologies are
associated with it: According to one, Lord Brahma created it to
welcome Lord Shiva. According to another, Lord Brahma sacrificed ten
horses in a yajna here. A group of priests daily perform in the
evening at this ghat “Agni Pooja” (Worship to Fire) wherein a
dedication is made to Lord Shiva, River Ganga, Surya (Sun), Agni
(Fire), and the whole universe.”

The evening puja location at Dasaswamedh Ghat

Every evening the priests come down to the edge of the river to perform a special ceremony to worship fire.

This is incredible and, like all good ceremonies, goes on far too long entirely on purpose. Its colours and special ambience is on the film as well. This time we were amongst multiple boats that had come to see the event and I soon tired of the tourist horde and so had our boat drop us of on the bank to get a close look at the proceedings.

There was a large crowd involved in the ceremony who were all clapping away to the music as they watched the five priests play conch shells and burn offerings all while wielding increasingly and uncomfortably hot looking fire goblets. It was here that I saw one older women cutting up carrots and praying under her breath. I took some footage and a photo of her and it is one of my proudest shots.

I remember being mesmerised by the look on her face. Whatever she was doing it was a fundamental part of not only her belief, but of her self and her life. That was the first time I stopped and wondered at Hinduism, but it certainly wasn’t the last.

After the ceremony we walked out of the Ghat along with the crowd and caught a cyclo back to the hotel. The poor rider struggled to get us moving and I paid him a bonus for his efforts. I had a lot to think about regarding what we had seen that day. It was all to come to an unfortunate conclusion in the next post, when Cesca and I found ourselves in the maze of back alleys in the “old city” and at the mercy of the unscrupulous…

For now then, here is the Special Edition of my Varanasi film about that day:

Regards,

Basho

We arrived on the train from Bodh Gaya relaxed and ready for more adventure.

It was a dark night and, unlike the Buddhist Centre, the large city of Varanasi was busy even at this time of year, so we joined the hordes at the station exit trying to find transport. The Tuk Tuk drivers descended on us travellers like raptors and the experience soon became a walk amongst shouting voices all vying for our attention. Over the top of the throng I could make out a government taxi ticket booth. These large booths sell fixed price tickets to people wanting transport into the city proper and are the only way to avoid being totally fleeced by the touts. It was only when I approached the counter and saw two policemen armed with sub machineguns standing behind the ticket seller that I started to get a feeling that this might not be the safest place. Indeed in my time in Varanasi I was to see more armed policemen than in all the other cities put together and I don’t mean with pistols, I mean with large rifles, assault rifles and Stirling sub machineguns. We bought a fare to our hotel at the far end of the strip running along the Ganges. It was a good price, slightly higher than one would want, but fixed – and that is worth paying a premium for. We jumped in the first Tuk Tuk, which had two men in the front, one driving and another along for the ride, and handed him our ticket. He immediately pulled off onto the road and started pootling along.

“Where do you want to go?” He asked with a thick accent placing a heavy emphasis on the ‘o’ in ‘go’ so it sounded like ‘Gohhh’

To the “Anami Lodge please.”

He shook his head, “No sir, that not good hotel.”

“Just take us there please.”

“Yes sir, but please this not a good hotel, very bad. I can show you a better hotel. It’s on the way no problem. You need a guide to the city?”

“No, we’re fine thanks.”

“Sir, please let me tell you, I am a government sponsored guide, I can show you the whole city for a fixed price.”

“No thanks” I was starting to get a little tension creep into my voice and Cesca cut in.

“We just want to go to our hotel.” She insisted.

“Ok madam, sir. Sorry, I just wanted to show you the other hotel, very good rate with breakfast included, much better room. Please sir, look at this.”

He took a small book from the dashboard and passed it back. I took it from his and regarded it. I had seen them before. It was a small lined exercise book, the sort a schoolboy would have. In it was page after page of “recommendations” from happy tourists saying that this man was one of the very best guides in the whole of India and that we had really fallen on our feet by being in his Tuk Tuk. Surely, the book told me, we should take advantage of this great fortune and let this wise and friendly man be our guide to this big city. On almost every page was a photo pasted in. Sometimes just a Polaroid, sometimes smaller like a photo-booth shot. Each one had a happy smiling tourist, often girls, grinning and making peace signs or giving thumbs up. The names were all western and signed in different pens; I was greeted by “Lisa” and “Tiffany from Texas”.

All fake.

Over my time in multiple Tuk Tuks in the last month I had been handed many of these books. The names were all similar, the writing familiar and the photos just as jolly and happy. The clue is in the detail; not one of the photos had this man in the shot.

“But surely!” You might say, “he may have been the one taking the photos!”

Perhaps, but I think not. We had so bad experiences with drivers using these books to gouge and pray on us that I began to suspect that there is a company somewhere in India that makes these books, writes the names, copies the photos off the Internet and pastes them in. Why? Because of the Westerners fear of the unknown.

Psychology is an interesting science. Its central tenant is that human beings need filters. There is so much information, so much data, coming into our eyes and ears at any one time that the brain has trouble processing it all. Therefore it looks for patterns amongst that information that it can use to categorise the data into known types. So, a man can look at a forest and see the leopard in the tree. It is a way of making sure that he grabs the branch he leaps for, catches the fish he darts after and hits the target he shoots at. This skill has consequences for society as we actively look for these patterns and when we are worried, such as when we are in a new and very foreign place, we find comfort in them.

How can a Tuk Tuk driver be trusted? Surely by reputation above other indicators. We look for something, anything that gives us the ability to trust this man. Is it his English good? Is he well dressed? If we are female, do we find him rakishly handsome? These are all indicators, but should they fail then he pulls out the “big gun”; the Great Book of Recommendations that is full of such indicators, such known patterns, and they are an attempt to disarm us from listening to our senses. To invite our rational side to override our instinct.

It didn’t work on me.

“Thanks, but just take us where we want to go.”

He shared a look with the man hanging on the front of the Tuk Tuk and drove on in silence. Eventually we arrived at a busy looking road where he pulled into the pavement.

“Over there is the hotel I wanted to show you,” he said pointing over the road.

“And where is my hotel?” I asked.

“Down there.” He pointed to our left where there was a large and dark alley. “You will have to carry your bags down there”. The driver sighed, “Come I will show you.” He got out of the Tuk Tuk.

I eyed the darkness and turned to Cesca,

“Stay here, watch the bags, I will check it out.”

“Are you sure?” she asked looking worried; the alley was pitch-black.

“Yep. Just wait.”

The driver led me into the gloom. It was very dark in this long alley and my senses immediately went into overdrive. As we walked along I noticed shapes along the floor; people lying on the path and the unmistakable smell of human excrement. I realised that I may be about to get mugged. I have walked down dark alleys in many cities from Rio to Barcelona, but this one had a palpable air of danger. Like that part in a horror movie where the victim does something stupid and you find yourself screaming, “Don’t go down that alley! Are you nuts?” As the gloom enveloped me I reached into my trouser pocket and silently took out my folding knife and held it against my leg. The man led me down three or four winding and dark alleys and after another narrow alley full of cows I began to wonder if he knew where to go. Eventually I gave up trying to remember the route and then we came to what looked like the back end of a large building.

“There,” he said. “There is the hotel, up those stairs.”

I walked up the staircase, more a fire escape, and around a bend. At the top was a glass door and I knocked, very conscious of the silence. The door opened and a smartly dressed young man stood in the doorway.

“May I help you?” He said.

“I have a reservation.” I said.

“Mr Bell?”

I relaxed. “Yes?”

“Come in sir! We have been awaiting your arrival!” He said happily with an Indian head wiggle.

I entered and found myself in a very smartly converted large townhouse. It was home to an entire family running the hotel part as a business venture where they live on-site. I counted five members of the same family, three girls and two men, who all welcomed me in with genuine smiles. I had a vision of what I must look like to them; a tall strange white man looking like Jack Bauer having a rough day. I tried to lower the shields and relax.

“May I see the room?” I asked as politely as I could.

“Of course!” The man led me up a few flights of stairs and showed me our room. It was one of the best room I saw in the entirely of India; large and welcoming. It looked over the Ganges and had a small balcony set outside high windows.

“Brilliant” I said. “But, I must ask, why is it so hard to get here?”

“What do you mean?”

I explained how the Tuk Tuk driver had led me through all those dark alleys to this place. The man was shocked and shook his head.

“Why didn’t you just park outside?” He asked, pulling back the curtain and showing me the road right outside the front of the hotel. Clearly I had been led in the back way.

“Thank you, we will.”

He took me back down and I left to return to Cesca. At the bottom of the stairs was the driver. He looked up at me and I gave him 100% of “The Look”.

The Look is something you need to practice to be able to pull off. It doesn’t matter who you are, what size you are, or your age, The Look is almost magical. It is one of practiced pure malevolence.

It is The Man With No Name pissed off,

“You gonna draw those pistols or whistle Dixy?”

Kaiser Sosa being in a line up,

“Hand me the keys you f*cking cock sucker”

Butch being called “paunchy”,

“What did you just say?”

My wife knows it as “my killing look”

I gave him the look and he had the good graces to shudder slightly and bow his head in shame. In silence we walked back through the alleys to my, now worried, Cesca. She visibly sighed in relief when I came out of the shadows.

“You were gone ages! What is it like?” she asked.

“It’s excellent, and this bastard has been mucking us around. The road goes right there, right outside.”

“This other guy has been trying to talk me into the other hotel,” she said, “amongst other things…”

“Like what?” I asked.

“Jade Goody. He thinks she’s great.”

“An amazing women!” Exclaimed the man hanging on the side of the Tuk Tuk. This was the first time that I had heard of the late Jade Goody outside of the UK and I was a bit shocked. It wasn’t until much later that I learned about her “visit” to India in the wake of the “bullying” allegations on Big Brother. Whatever she did here, it worked. I now suspect that a lot of Indians never liked Shilpa Shetty anyway. I shook my head to clear out of the madness and maintain my righteous anger. I turned to the driver.

“Take us to the front of the hotel right now.”

“Cost extra” He answered sourly.

Cesca made to complain but I stopped her with a raised hand.

“Just do it!”

He started up the Tuk Tuk and we pulled back onto the road. About 25 meters ahead the road curved to the left and we wheeled around it towards the river. Another 25 meters and we pulled left again and there was the hotel on my left. It was right around the corner!

“You’re kidding!” Said Cesca flabbergasted.

“Now,” the driver said, “pay extra, parking here cost me money.”

“What?”

“To come down here I have to pay those guys over there.” He pointed at a group of men lounging at one end of the street.

I turned to Cesca, “Baby, lets pay these guys and forget about them.”

“But, we already paid! She protested.”

“Come on” I insisted. We got out of the Tuk Tuk and I extracted a small note and gave it to the driver. “Now go away” I told him.

He went without comment and we entered the hotel.

And that was my first hour in Varanasi. Not the most auspicious of beginnings and I wondered if he hadn’t made a mistake incoming here.

Our experience is not uncommon all over India and indeed all over Asia, but here there was something else, some sense of menace in the atmosphere, in the air of the driver. Something was pulling at my senses and demanding that I pay attention. It was saying to me to be on my guard, not rely on the pattern recognition response that could lead so easily astray and be manipulated.

I decided to listen, and in a strange way that is probably why Varanasi was to touch me so deeply. Because I was listening to my senses, paying attention to all that was around me; not simply matching it to a type and filing it away.

In Varanasi I was awake. I needed to be: I was to witness my first dead body the next morning.

Regards,

Basho

So what kind of place is it and how does it make one feel to be in one of the most “holy” cities in the world?  This short film considers just that by showing the city as it wakes and as it goes to sleep.

Varanasi: City of Gods from Basho Matsuo on Vimeo.

Varanasi is not a city for the beginner traveller.  There are many dangers to being in such a place, both physically and spiritually. While we were there we unwittingly saw the results of a murder, were followed and threatened by a local targeting tourists, eyed up by countless armed police and got into some heated arguments with the local Tuk Tuk drivers who attempted to rip us off.  For us, having travelled for so long, this was taken all in our stride. The other dangers in Varanasi appear to be spiritual.  The entire place is full of European Yogic converts who live in Ashrams up and down the banks.  That you could lose yourself here was for me the real danger I sought to avoid.

There is a definite sense of this being a holy city.  It is filthy and downtrodden like many Indian cities, but its immense ancientness is captivating.  I have tried to show some of that in this film. The ceremony shown at the end of the film is known as the Varanasi Dashashwamedh Ghat Agni Pooja Ceremony and practiced daily in honour of the gods:

“Dashashwamedh Ghat is located close to “Vishwanath Temple”, and is
probably the most spectacular ghat. Two Hindu mythologies are
associated with it: According to one, Lord Brahma created it to
welcome Lord Shiva. According to another, Lord Brahma sacrificed ten
horses in a yajna here. A group of priests daily perform in the
evening at this ghat “Agni Pooja” (Worship to Fire) wherein a
dedication is made to Lord Shiva, River Ganga, Surya (Sun), Agni
(Fire), and the whole universe.”